More and more devices are being replaced with autonomous and semiautonomous electronic devices. This is especially true in the hospitals of today with large arrays of autonomous and semiautonomous electronic devices being found in operating rooms, interventional suites, intensive care wards, emergency rooms, and the like. For example, glass and mercury thermometers are being replaced with electronic thermometers, intravenous drip lines now include electronic monitors and flow regulators, and traditional hand-held surgical instruments are being replaced by computer-assisted medical devices.
These electronic devices provide both advantages and challenges to the personnel operating them. Many of these electronic devices may be capable of autonomous or semi-autonomous motion of one or more articulated arms and/or end effectors. Before these articulated arms and their end effectors may be used, they are typically moved to or near a desired working position and orientation. This movement may be performed by teleoperation or remote operation using one or more user input controls. As the complexity of these electronic devices increases and the articulated arms include large numbers of degrees of freedom, movement into the desired working position and orientation by teleoperation may become complex and/or time consuming. To streamline this operation, some articulated arms include a clutched or float state where one or more of the brakes and/or the actuators on the joints of articulated arms are released, allowing an operator to manually change the positions and/or the orientations of the articulated arms via direct manipulation. In this way the articulated arms may be quickly and easily positioned and/or oriented as desired. The clutch or float state is often engaged by manually activating one or more clutch controls on the articulated arm and/or selecting the clutch or float state at an operator console. This type of manual activation may be inconvenient and/or imprudent.
Accordingly, improved methods and systems for clutching articulated arms is desirable.